"O World, strangled and collapsed, where are the strong white teeth?
O World, sinking with the silver balls and corks and life preservers, where are the rosy scalps?
O glab and glairy, O glabrous world now chewed to a frazzle, under what dead moon do you lie cold and gleaming?"
- from The Fourteenth Ward by Henry Miller.
don't go to sleep
this night
one night is worth
a hundred thousand souls
the night is generous
it can give you
a gift of the full moon
it can bless your soul
with endless treasure
- Jalāl ad-Dīn Rumi
translated by Nader Khalili
from Ghazal 947
Fountain of Fire
Once upon a time in the long now there was a continent, a landmass floating on water. White people called it Asia on dusty maps. Deep inside Asia were vast lands, rivers and mountains.
Overtime, a historical bandit with a reputation for laughter, magic, fear, superstition, and insatiable appetites for diverse languages, customs and cultures lived in jungles and forests.
OTHER preferred living on distant and remote mountains.
Jingle, jangle, jungle. Using natural materials they created musical instruments, simple weapons, homes, fish traps, snares and looms. The women had babies, wove cloth and prepared food while the men fished, planted crops, domesticated animals. Children played and learned life lessons from nature with extended families.
One day a boat filled with white men sailed down the river to a village deep in the jungle. They wore shiny clothing, spoke a language the people could not understand and carried weapons that made a lot of noise and scared everyone. They pretended to be friendly by offering gifts. The leader of the village welcomed them. They had a party.
Every day more white people came down the river on boats named Destiny. They were on a quest for gold and slaves. Owning, using and discarding slaves had proven to be an essential part of their historical evolution on other continents.
Their mantra was: cheap labor, cheap raw materials, cheap goods, cheap markets and much profit.
White people said, we are civilized and you are savages. We have religion. It is called Wealth.
It is Greed.
We are on a mission from the great chief. We control fire. We control time. We control people. We control nature. We have machines. We take what we want.
The village gave them hospitality, shelter and friendship. The white men were greedy. They took control of the village, the people and the jungle.
Every day the white men marched their slaves deep into the jungle singing, We control Nature. We shall overcome.
They spread diseases. They planted fear. They planted envy and jealousy. They manipulated villages against villages. They divided people against people. Divide and conquer against each other. History taught them well.
They harvested wealth in the form of people, precious stones, rubber and every raw material of economic value. They were never satisfied. Their appetite grew and grew.
If we want to survive we must move to a new jungle forest far away, said the village shaman. This is the story they told people one night below stars singing with their light.
“In summation your honor,” said a defensive attorney from the Land of Smirking Tomatoes, “my client is innocent of all responsibility. We rest our case.”
“Your discovery evidence in Article 301 is weak and inconclusive,” said the Turkish judge hiding Graft behind his back. “Your motion for acquittal and adjudication is forthwith dead and denied.”
“May I change my plea your honor? May I resume my please bargaining and negotiating hardball tactics on behalf of free speech? May I speak without fear of insulting the state, dead hee-haw headless horsemen heroes, fundamentalism in the form of religious heroin addiction and so forth?”
“File a brief, size small with elasticity.”
"Turkey has imprisoned more journalists than Iran and China,” said Zeynep, a five-year old historian. “Free speech here is a theory."
“Do you need twenty-eight vanities of olives? Maybe a broom?" said a wage slave on his knees in Trabzon.
NYT article here.
sunday song
cambodia is a funny place. ha, ha, ha.
what do you see? i see a man carrying one red brick. he’s looking for a place to put it down. he is confused. he had no idea his day would involve carrying a brick AND making a decision.
he needs a woman to tell him what do. this is rare because men, in his culture, are the boss and tell women what to do. usually they tell them to lie down and get ready for the big thing.
he is confused about loss. his wife wears the pants. she is the now.
i see an exuberant extraordinary solid particle cow patty land-mine in the middle of sunday’s broken pot holed road. it’s a steaming green mountain.
it smells like an art project.
it will be discovered by a speeding SUV leaving a trace of aroma past sweeping weeping women. it will spread itself over the entire olfactory landscape.
it will create new tomorrows.
***
welcome to a new reality game show. it’s called “Watch Women Work.”
work to eat now OR evolution of the species and social organization (+-)
log on, log in, log the forest. yeah, yeah. i am mr. monosyllable, your creme filled hostess cupcake for this week’s exciting program. yeah, yeah.
contestant #1. a housewife in a rural village. her task is sweeping dust into piles of dust outside her bamboo shack. she has all day to complete this arduous task. repeat.
dust to dust. dawn to dusk. (poetic ramifications in the theatre of the absurd)
contestant #2. a housewife. she has a house. she is a wife. she has 10 children. having children is her DUTY. sex for her is nothing but a DUTY. she is a duty free outlet. her price tag has expired. everything must go.
many children gives her mother and extended family someone to love and play with and yell at. yelling at kids here is abNORMAL and healthy. it nurtures their self-esteem and neurotic adolescence with punctuation marks.
her husband is sleeping. he loves sleeping, eating and making babies, because he doesn’t have to carry them around for nine months and experience hormonal feelings. he sleeps forever dreaming of a hammock in a bamboo forest.
her, his, their children are naked. they play with trash. they set fire to the forest.
fire is their great fun and games besides Yelling and Whining.
contestant #3. a housewife. she is milling around. she has no focus, plan or direction. she is a teacher. she teaches by example. she hopes the lazy boys and men understand. she’s knows many won’t and don’t.
she pounds things like metal. all day. she is a tool. she is a worker. she is a tool of production in life’s assembly factory. she is a simple person. she spits out many children. this is her duty. children are tools.
contestant #4. a housewife. she works. her lazy adult son watches her. he is bored watching her. he wants to stare at the long and winding dirt road. he wants to feast his small beady rat eyes on dirt. his eyes are dirt. pure clean red dirt. she sweeps him into the river. swim, little fish. bye-bye baby, bye-bye. he floats away.
contestant #5. a housewife. she has a diamond in her mind. she is calm and focused. she exhales beauty, truth and love.
she sings all day long.
pick one to emulate. find one with incentive and initiative and win BIG prizes.
what’s the prize? a broom, a brick, an SUV smashing a green cow patty and a monster home shaped like a wedding cake surrounded by a moat, high walls, silver barb wire and iridescent colored candles.
anything else?
a year’s subscription to your favorite illustrated color glossy advertising magazine:
“Dreams, Lies, Wishes, Hopes, and Great Expectations While Driving a Blue Dismal Diesel Dump Truck Needing an Overhaul Loaded with Charcoal.”
cool prizes. let’s play. what’s the first question about the quality of life? said Socrates.
meanwhile: destiny’s child disguised as a black and vermillion butterfly nurtured red and orange exploding flowers above a cool brown flowing river.
see you next week on WWW.
Share Article